Coral Dando, Professor of Psychology, published an innovative study on aphantasia and its effect on eyewitness memory in the Royal Society Open Science Journal on 25 October 2023.
Professor Dando’s study is the first known research to try and understand real-world implications of aphantasia in the realm of criminal justice. People with this condition cannot visually image or have visual imagery impairment; they are unable or less able to visually image objects that are not present. Her study indicated that this condition is likely to significantly impact witnesses and victims’ recall of a crime event, but not the accuracy of what they are able to remember.
Professors Dando’s research investigated the intersection of aphantasia, episodic memory and the role of the eyewitnesses. Testimony based on personally experienced events provided by witnesses and victims is fundamental for criminal justice. Her research investigated what this means for individuals with aphantasia, who report an inability to voluntarily visually image which is typically accompanied by reduced episodic memory.
To answer this question, Professor Dando used a mock-witness method to investigate eyewitness memory of individuals with aphantasia versus those with typical image memory. This study also investigated the efficacy of two forms of psychologically guided investigative interview techniques, which are used by professionals to trigger additional contextual cues for eyewitnesses.
Participants viewed a mock crime and forty-eight hours later were interviewed about the event. Two interview groups included techniques which are known to support episodic memory retrieval in neurotypical eyewitnesses: Mental Reinstatement of Context (MRC) and Sketch-Reinstatement of Context (Sketch-RC). The third interview strategy was a control group and did not incorporate any memory retrieval support.
Professor Dando found that aphantasic participants in the control group outperformed those in both the Sketch-RC and MRC groups, but the Sketch-RC technique improved completeness of recall by 15% versus MRC. The results of this study also indicate that eyewitnesses with reduced mental imagery ability may be able to compensate with self-initiated cognitive strategies, but the nature of these strategies is not understood. The findings offer insights into the impact of aphasia on episodic information recall and emphasise the need to better understand and support all individuals in eyewitness situations to maximise accurate recall of events.
Professor Dando said: “I would like to thank the aphantasic community for working with us on this project. Although visual imagination varies, aphantasics often cannot visually image at all. Consequently, remembering personally experienced events is challenging because this type of long-term memory relies heavily on the ability to mentally travel back in time. This is the first applied study of its kind, and so much more research is needed to understand how best to support aphantasic witnesses and victims of crime to remember as much as they can. However, the good news is that our research indicates aphantasia may not have a negative impact on the number of memory errors reported and that sketching at the time of remembering may offer some benefits.”
Read the full study Real-world implications of Aphantasia: episodic recall of eyewitnesses with Aphantasia is less complete but no less accurate than typical imagers in the Royal Society Open Science Journal.
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